Pages

Monday, July 3, 2017

Ladders everywhere

I must have some sort of vertigo, though it does not seem to be the conventional kind. I mean, I can climb up ladders, literally, and even look down upon the ground. Yes, there is that dry feeling in the mouth and shivers down my spine and all that. I certainly would not prefer to cross over to the next building on a tightrope but, get this, my head does not start spinning nor do I feel the pressing need to end it all by taking a swan dive into eternity. But THAT is only when it comes to physical ladders.

The problem with the world is that it is too damn full of metaphorical ladders. You run into them the moment you hit school. (You probably run into them even before on the "Oh! Your Chintu started walking only at xx months of age? My Montu did it in xx-2 months" basis but, at that time, your parents do not get on your case, berating you for your tardiness in toddling around the house breaking glasses). School...Ah! 'Look at Kumar! Always comes first, scores 90+ in all subjects. You...Even if I total up all the marks in all the subjects, you do not equal his score in one subject' These, of course, were the days that grades had not come into the picture though, I am sure, there is an equivalent of this even now. So, there you were, bemusedly wondering about the fact that people saw you squatting on the lowest rung of a ladder that you could not even see.

By around the time you got ready for college, you HAD started seeing those ladders too. IIT - top rung; Medicine at JIPMER/MMC - top rung with a strong case for putting it a notch above even the IITs; NITs next rung and so on till you reached the abysmal depths at which you were positioned. By then, of course, I had developed a definite aversion to these ladders, considering that it seemed like whichever rung I occupied was the last possible rung in everyone else's opinion.

About the time I joined the ranks of the wage slaves, I found out the ultimate bitter truth. Life was a perpetual ladder climbing expedition. You never got off it. You could only fall off it and be stamped upon. First, you are on a ladder of a starting salary comparison, slowly you are on another ladder where your position relative to batch-mates/friends/relatives and the man on the street was important; then, of course, it is position in WHICH company; then your lifestyle; then the sort of people who you know and who know you, then...

Well, sitting at this end of seeing a job as only a way to earn money to eat, drink and be merry, I was lost in the bleak contemplation of an endless life of being the play-piece on an infinite Snake and Ladders board. THAT is when I developed that vertigo, this swimming sensation in the head, the pit of the stomach nausea and an irresistible desire to take a swan dive into eternity.

AND then I realized that I could just refuse to climb them...pile up enough to suit my modest needs and walk away. Which I did.

AND I thought I was safe. Books, I thought, were safe enough a refuge and nerdy book-lovers a solace from all this endless ladder climbing.

"Ah! You read John Grisham and David Baldacci? No Murakami, no Paulo Coelho...Tch! Tch! AND you do not like Rushdie..."

Omigod!

"If you have not delved into the layers of meaning in the Kafkaesque prose about an Orwellian universe..."

Now, what was all that? I thought the damn thing was a good read. What the hell is Kafkaesque prose and is this Orwellian universe a flat Earth universe or a Copernican one or dangling on strings or afloat in quantum foam?

"What? You only know that you liked the book? Come on, you should be able to tell me whether it ranks for literary quality with a Jane Austen or depth of characters with..."

Ladders here as well! AND, as usual, I am on the bottom rung!

Does being descended from monkeys mean that we should be climbing something always? Ye Gods!

12 comments:

I will tell you sir that people are those metaphorical ladders, not jobs not books not anything attached to the people. It is only the people who are ladders! Avoid them and you would avoid these damn ladders :)

"You are Suresh's brother?!! And you still do such mischief???" That look of horrified fascination on almost all my teachers' faces is still fresh in my memory. {My elder brother, Suresh, was such a guy, a real paragon and I must say while it was a matter of some pride being the brother of such a guy, comparisons made and faces made full of disbelief were not fun.